News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attend the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building on February 5, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Pool/Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren became the most prominent Democratic presidential hopeful to join the calls for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to be impeached following new allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Kavanaugh’s nomination “was rammed through the Senate,” Warren tweeted Sunday. “Confirmation is not exoneration, and these newest revelations are disturbing. Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.”

Earlier in the day, Sen. Kamala Harris of California also called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment, saying he was confirmed to the Supreme Court “through a sham process.” Now, Kavanaugh’s “place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice,” Harris wrote. “He must be impeached.”ADVERTISEMENTinRead invented by Teads

The first Democratic presidential contender who called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment was Julián Castro. “It’s more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath,” Castro tweeted Saturday night. “He should be impeached.”

Castro called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment shortly after the New York Times published an explosive report that detailed a new allegation of sexual misconduct against the Supreme Court justice. Although senators and the FBI knew about the allegation, they failed to follow up, according to the Times piece.

Trump launched a strong defense of Kavanaugh on Twitter Sunday with a series of tweets accusing the media of launching an attack against him to influence his opinions. “Can’t let Brett Kavanaugh give Radical Left Democrat (Liberal Plus) Opinions based on threats of Impeaching him over made up stories,” Trump tweeted. “Fake and Corrupt News is working overtime!” Earlier, Trump wrote that Kavanaugh “should start suing people for libel, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue.”

Impeaching a Supreme Court justice requires a similar process as removing the president from office with the House of Representatives voting on impeachment and the Senate deciding whether to remove from office. So even if Democrats unite to impeach Kavanaugh in the House, the Republican-led Senate would not vote to remove him from office. And while impeaching a justice is technically possible, it’s exceedingly rare and has only happened once in U.S. history. The House voted to impeach Samuel Chase in 1805 but he was not actually removed from office by the Senate.

“Corruption is breaking our democracy”: Elizabeth Warren’s case for the White House

“I’m not afraid, and you can’t be afraid, either,” Warren told supporters at a rally in New York City’s Washington Square Park.

By Emily Stewart Sep 16, 2019, 7:55pm EDT

Elizabeth Warren laid out her anti-corruption message in New York City in September 2019. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Elizabeth Warren delivered a major speech on the devastating effects of corruption in Washington Square Park in New York City. In the backdrop was the former site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where a fire on March 25, 1911, left nearly 150 workers dead, many of them immigrant women and girls.

“It took 18 minutes for 146 people to die. Mostly women. Mostly immigrants — Jewish and Italian. Mostly people who made as little as $5 a week to get their shot at the American dream,” Warren told the crowd, which filled most of the park in lower Manhattan. “It was one of the worst industrial disasters in American history. One of the worst, but it should not have been a surprise.”

She delivered the speech on the same day she unveiled a wide-ranging anti-corruption package she says will be her first legislative priority if she’s elected president, laying out how corporate interests and government lapses led to the deadly blaze. Factory workers for years complained about dangerous conditions and asked for better hours and higher pay, but they didn’t get it. The tragedy was likely preventable: the exit doors in the factory were locked, so the women inside couldn’t escape.

Warren doesn’t just believe corruption is bad for democracy — she views it as a mortal threat to every single aspect of society. The Massachusetts Democrat laid out her case against the forces at work against everyday people. It is, at its core, the case for her candidacy.

Warren sought to place the urgency of the current moment and the argument for her White House bid in historical context with her speech.

“Climate change. Gun safety. Health care. On the face of it, these three are totally different issues,” Warren said. “But despite our being the strongest and wealthiest country in the history of the world, our democracy is paralyzed. Why? Because giant corporations have bought off our government.”

She also took a swipe at President Donald Trump, characterizing him as “corruption in the flesh,” but emphasized the problem is much bigger than just him. “We need to take a deep breath and recognize that a country that elects Donald Trump is already in serious trouble.”

Washington Square Park is in a high-traffic part of the city, meaning the rally crowd was a mix of Warren supporters, people trying to hang out in the park, and people trying to walk through it. Ben, a 24-year-old student at NYU, heard about the rally earlier in the month but had forgotten it was happening until he was on his way home after school. (I got the sense this was part of the plan on the Warren team’s part — people see the event’s happening and decide to stay.)

Ben said he hasn’t decided which 2020 candidate to back yet, but Warren is probably his top pick so far. “Elizabeth Warren is a strong, policy-minded candidate who not only had clearly thought about various policies in detail, but has come to what I think is a good position on most of them,” he said. “I haven’t specifically pored through her policy proposals, because there are 100,000 of them.”Warren’s got plans — but what’s more important is the ferociousness that’s behind them

Warren’s litany of plans on basically anything and everything has become a signature element of her presidential bid. “Warren has a plan for that,” is one of her campaign mottos. Her speech is meant to accompany Monday’s anti-corruption package. (You can read Vox’s Ella Nilsen’s full explainer on that here.)

The senator, unsurprisingly, on Monday touted her plans. She mentioned her plans to impose a wealth tax, end lobbying, and strengthen unions, among others. The former Harvard professor and bankruptcy expert has put the image of a rigged system at the center of her presidential bid, but it’s a belief she has held for years. She gained national prominence in American politics for her blistering criticism of Wall Street and politicians on both sides of the aisle in the wake of the financial crisis.

“Corruption has put our planet at risk. Corruption has broken our economy. And corruption is breaking our democracy,” Warren said on Monday. “I know what’s broken, I’ve got a plan to fix it, and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States.”

Yoruba Richen, a 48-year-old documentary filmmaker, said she’s been a fan of Warren since the days of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency Warren conceived of and pushed to set up. “We need to overhaul this whole system, some of us, especially people of color, working-class people, have known this forever, it’s nothing new. And she’s really the first time I’m seeing in such a very real way, really taking on and changing the system, or trying to,” she said.

She conceded that she also likes Bernie Sanders, the other progressive in the 2020 race, but he’s not quite what she’s looking for. “I’ve always liked Bernie,” she said. “But I think with Elizabeth, she’s got real-world experience in doing stuff. Also, quite frankly, these white guys have fucked up this country for so long.”

Warren told a story about a woman in history with ferocity — carefully choosing a historical figure that has a special place on the left.

Warren spoke of Frances Perkins, a workers-rights advocate who became the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Perkins witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and it was a pivotal moment for the course the rest of her life would take. While she was already an activist at the time, the tragedy propelled her to throw herself full-force into politics, first at the state level in New York, and then at the national level.

“What did one woman — one very persistent woman — backed up by millions of people across this country get done?” Warren asked the crowd. “Social Security. Unemployment insurance. Abolition of child labor. Minimum wage. The right to join a union. Even the very existence of the weekend. Big, structural change. One woman, and millions of people to back her up.”

It’s not hard to see the parallel between Perkins and herself Warren was trying to draw here.

She invoked other historical comparisons of Americans who “have been told that it wasn’t possible to make big, structural change” and fought back — the abolitionists, the suffragettes, union organizers, civil rights and LGBQ activists. “But they didn’t give up. They organized. They built a grassroots movement. They persisted. And they changed the course of American history,” Warren said.

Warren’s use of the word “persist” is not by accident. “Nevertheless, she persisted,” a phrase used by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) about Warren in 2017, has become a battle refrain of Warren’s world, more broadly, of many American women. Alanna, 28, a psychologist from the Upper West Side at the rally was wearing a “Nevertheless, she persisted,” shirt. She said she had seen a sign for the rally on the Upper West Side and decided to come to the park to check it out.

“I think we’ve seen her do some incredible things,” she said. “She talks with such poise and calm, and I think that’s something that I look for in a candidate, who can talk about their plans and their experiences most calmly and eloquently.”

Warren, the first major candidate out of the gate in the 2020 primary, has been gaining momentum throughout the summer. At this point, the Democratic race is largely a three-way contest between Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders. On Monday, Warren picked up the endorsement of grassroots political activist group the Working Families Party, which backed Sanders in 2016. WFP national director Maurice Mitchell introduced her at the New York rally.

Warren has not built out a grassroots movement behind her that rivals the one behind Sanders, but it appears she’s trying to change that. “I am not afraid,” she told supporters on Monday, “and you can’t be afraid, either.”

I didn't think it possible, but if one of these idiots is nominated, I just might be casting my vote for Trump. Accusations of sexual misconduct are serious, but when the alleged victim won't corroborate the accusation, I find it not to have a shred of credibility.

I didn't think it possible, but if one of these idiots is nominated, I just might be casting my vote for Trump. Accusations of sexual misconduct are serious, but when the alleged victim won't corroborate the accusation, I find it not to have a shred of credibility.

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the field of Democratic White House hopefuls, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is running a close second, according to the latest national survey from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.

The survey finds Biden at 31 percent support, followed by Warren at 25 percent. Biden and Warren are the two biggest gainers in the poll, with Biden rising 5 points from the same survey in July and Warren picking up 6 points.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is in third place with 14 percent support, a 1-point increase from July.

The survey found that Democratic voters are most excited about the Warren campaign, with 35 percent saying they would enthusiastically cast a ballot for her, compared to 25 percent who said the same of Sanders and 23 percent who said they would be enthusiastic about voting for Biden.

Warren is also the top second choice for voters who supported someone else in the survey, with 21 percent listing her as their backup, followed by Sanders at 16 percent, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 12 percent and Biden at 11 percent.

If first choice and second choice preferences are combined, Warren leads with 45 percent, followed by Biden at 41 percent and Sanders at 29 percent.

No other candidate has double-digit support in the poll.

Buttigieg is at 7 percent support, followed by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif) at 5 percent and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 4 percent.

Harris's support has fallen dramatically since July, losing 8 points, the biggest drop of any candidate in the field.

Sens. Amy KlobucharAmy Jean KlobucharMark Mellman: The most important moment in history?Democrats press for action on election securityAntitrust enforcers in turf war over Big TechMORE(D-Minn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are at 2 percent each, and no other candidate received more than 1 percent support.

The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll is a qualifying survey for the Democratic presidential debates.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) needs only one additional poll to qualify but did not hit the 2 percent mark here.

The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll of 506 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted between Sept. 13 and Sept. 16 and has a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.

Earlier this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced a sweeping set of anti-corruption proposals to a crowd of supporters in New York City's iconic Washington Square Park. The focus quickly shifted to the sheer size of the rally – estimated at more than 20,000 – and what that means for the narrowing field of 2020 Democratic contenders. But as CBS News special correspondent and co-host of "The Circus" Alex Wagner observed, the event was significant for more reasons than the number of attendees.

"You saw her framed under Washington Square Park arch with her campaign signs flanking her. That was a bid to show America, to show undecided Democrats that Elizabeth Warren can be a stateswoman. That she can be the kind of person that can lead the country," Wagner told "CBS This Morning" Friday.

Warren has emerged as one of the top Democratic presidential contenders in recent weeks but Monday's event revealed a new strategy that, as Wagner pointed out, is widely seen by Democrats as the best bet for defeating President Trump.

"Elizabeth Warren wants to plant her flag in this anti-corruption strategy. It's something all the Democrats want to use against Trump, but she wants to own it," Wagner said. "And if you look at the polling around Warren, you see momentum there. That rally only helped with that."

Though she has picked up momentum, the Massachusetts senator is still polling closely to fellow 2020 contender Bernie Sanders and, at the end of the day, there can only be one Democratic nominee.

"If you talk to Warren supporters, it's really interesting. They like Warren – they don't want to alienate Bernie Sanders supporters in their support for Warren. They don't want to even alienate Biden supporters. There's a sense inside the Democratic voting caucus that, look, we have favorites, but we will get behind whoever the winner is and within the Warren campaign and the Sanders campaign, you hear that echoed publicly," Wagner said.

But there is a sense, according to Wagner, that a two-way race rather than a three-way race could soon emerge.

"I think this week you heard frustration from the Sanders campaign. Elizabeth Warren got a coveted endorsement from the Working Families' Party. That polling shows her having momentum. There's a sense that this thing is really narrowing and could be a two-way race rather than a three-way race. And you're hearing frustration from the Sanders campaign on Twitter and at the actual events. Warren, meanwhile, I think understands that her path to victory involves bringing those Sanders voters into the fold so she has more of a magnanimous, I think, message, more broadly, and even quietly. There's a sense that they cannot win over Sanders' supporters by alienating them. But no matter where you go, I cannot underscore enough the sense of trepidation among Democratic voters. There is real fear that they've got to rally behind their nominee to defeat Donald Trump because that's the existential threat."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led former Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa for the first time in a presidential primary poll released Saturday.

The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa found that 22 percent support Warren for president while 20 percent said Biden was their top choice.

The two top candidates were within the poll's margin of error but it represents the first time Biden hasn't been at the top of the field in the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state.

When considering second choices, Warren's lead over Biden expands, with a total of 42 percent of likely Democratic voters calling her their first or second choice. Biden was one of the top two choices for 30 percent of likely Democratic voters.

In the Iowa caucus, a voter’s first choice is only viable if they have at least 15 percent of the vote. If not, the voter can switch to their second choice.

The top two candidates were trailed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 11 percent, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 9 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris with 6 percent.

Biden was ahead of Warren in the Des Moines Register's three past polls of the 2020 cycle but Warren has seen a steady increase.

In December she had the support of 8 percent of respondents while in March she had support of 9 percent. In June, 15 percent of respondents supported her although the paper noted that the June poll had a slightly different methodology than the others. The Massachusetts Senator has also seen increased momentum in recent months on a national level.

J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll, told the Des Moines Register that this was the race's “first major shakeup.”

“It’s the first time we’ve had someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the leader board,” Selzer said.

Rand Paul began his offensive against Liz Cheney as soon as a Senate seat opened up in May, reigniting a years-long feud between their families and warring wings of the Republican Party.

The Kentucky GOP senator quickly made contact with Cynthia Lummis, a former conservative House member, to encourage her to run for the Senate seat opening up in Wyoming now that Mike Enzi was retiring.

Lummis soon jumped into the race, leaving Cheney, her successor in Congress, with a tough choice: Embark on a brutal primary against Lummis or take the safer route and seek her fortune in House leadership.

That was only the beginning of Paul’s slugfest with Cheney, one that included a fierce back and forth over Twitter on foreign policy, dueling Sunday show appearances and a highly unusual phone call from Paul into a Casper, Wyo., TV station to assert that Wyoming Republicans are “tired” of Cheney’s support for nation-building abroad.

Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican in just her second term, responded with her own show of strength. She said she was looking forward to having dinner with President Donald Trump that evening.

The assertion from Cheney that Paul has surrendered “to terrorists” and Paul’s response that Cheney is a “NeverTrump warmonger” was, in the words of Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), “weird, wild stuff.”

The bad blood between the Cheneys and Pauls goes way back. The fathers, former Rep. Ron Paul and former Vice President Dick Cheney were on opposite sides of the Iraq War. Dick Cheney backed Rand Paul’s primary opponent in 2010. Since Rand Paul was elected, he’s backed Liz Cheney’s challenger in each of her congressional races.ADVERTISINGLiz Cheney

Rep. Liz Cheney has risen quickly in the House, and at times staked out more conservative territory than Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“Rand likes to pick a fight, that’s his way,” said Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), who serves in House leadership with Cheney but is neutral on the Wyoming Senate race.

But the battle is much more than personal beef. It’s a preview of a divisive Senate primary; a public display of the long-running effort to influence Trump’s loose policy views; and a test for how best to claim the Trump mantle in a party whose sharp divides have been papered over since winning the White House in 2016.

A safe red state is the perfect place for it all to play out, with Lummis as a proxy for Paul’s libertarian-inflected conservatism against Cheney’s sharp-edged ambition at home and abroad.

“Cynthia Lummis is going to be the next U.S. senator from Wyoming. If [Cheney] runs, it may be the most significant Republican primary in the country,” Paul said in an interview. “She’ll have to decide whether she wants to match conservative credentials with somebody who actually lives in Wyoming and has been there her whole life.”

Cheney’s allies scoff at Paul’s early intervention in the race and insist it won't impact her decision making. In fact, they say his aggressive maneuvering could backfire in a state where GOP voters have hugged Trump tightly. Paul, they point out, once called Trump an "orange-faced windbag" and has only voted with Trump 69 percent of the time on key votes, compared to Cheney’s 96 percent, according to the website 538.

Early polling shows Cheney leading Lummis by over 20 points in a potential match-up, according to a survey conducted by the GOP firm The Tarrance Group.

Though she's made no final decision and isn't expected to do so for a couple months, Republicans believe she's likely to run for the Senate, according to interviews with a dozen members of Congress and aides. For now, Cheney says only that she’s “going to do what’s best for Wyoming.” And even some of her closest allies don’t know where she will land.

“She and I have talked about it several times,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, a Cheney friend who is running for Senate in Alabama. “She’d be a terrific senator, she’d be a terrific speaker. I think that is the dilemma.”

Her decision will have an outsized effect on both the Senate, where she could one day mount a presidential run, and the House, where she’s viewed as a potential future speaker. Many are already taking sides.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is eager for Cheney to run, according to three sources familiar with his preference in the race. McConnell sees Cheney as a dynamic addition to his conference and a likely ally for his agenda. Lummis was often at odds with House leadership and served in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.

Hawkish Republicans like Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) also back Cheney.Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle

A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox.Email

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

“I don’t know the other lady, I just know Liz,” Graham said. “She’d be an outstanding senator.”

Yet the “other lady” also has plenty of supporters in the Senate, and they are making a not-so-subtle effort to head Cheney off from running. In addition to Paul, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) all support Lummis. Plenty of Senate Republicans are also still peeved by Cheney’s aborted primary campaign against Enzi six years ago.

“Liz very well could be the first Republican woman speaker of the House,” Cramer said, adding that the state and party will be stronger without a divisive primary. “If I was in Wyoming I’d go, ‘gosh, we have an opportunity to have a couple superstars.’ And if Liz does [run for Senate], we don’t.”

Cheney has risen quickly in the House, and at times staked out more conservative territory than Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — moves that could better position herself to run for speaker one day.

If Cheney instead decides to challenge Lummis for the Senate, the contest would elevate the larger split in the Republican Party over foreign policy and the still simmering debate over whether Trump’s worldview is closer to Paul’s and Lummis’ or Cheney’s.

Lummis told POLITICO she "received encouragement from Senator Paul and a number of other fiscally conservative senators." And despite Cheney’s leadership position, Lummis still has allies in the House, where she served for nearly a decade.

Conservative Rep. Mark Meadows, one of Trump’s closest confidants on Capitol Hill, has already contributed to Lummis’ campaign. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who leans libertarian like Paul, said it’s an “easy call” to back Lummis.

Some GOP lawmakers and aides interpreted the Cheney-Paul Twitter spat as an audition for an audience of one: Trump. If Cheney does jump into the race, there would undoubtedly be a battle for Trump’s endorsement. His supporters in Congress are unsure if Trump would weigh in.

Cheney’s allies, though, say she has a leg up, catching Trump’s eye on Fox News as a fierce champion of the military. At a White House event in July, the president heaped praise on Cheney, saying she has a “pretty unlimited future.”

Yet Lummis was also considered for Interior secretary, a sign the president has gotten over a disparaging comment she made during the 2016 campaign — that she was “holding my nose” to vote for Trump.

Regardless of who wins, the Senate will be far different with the departure of the low-key Enzi. Lummis might be a headache for GOP leaders if she resumes the same confrontational stance she had in the House and joins Paul as a thorn in McConnell’s side.

And if Cheney wins, well, those who sit between her and Paul at the weekly Republican lunches better look out.

About four and a half months before Iowans caucus together one night in February, the candidates who want their votes hosted dozens of events around the state as a new poll showed a race in flux.

Here are seven things we learned from a busy weekend in Iowa:

Warren is the front-runner

A new Des Moines Register/CNN poll conducted by Iowa polling guru Ann Selzer shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading the Democratic field, the first time one of Selzer's polls has shown anyone ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden.

But Warren is more than just the front-runner in the Iowa Democratic caucuses. She's positioned to be the front-runner in the whole race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

What made Warren the leading contender in Iowa, even before Selzer's poll, was her slow and steady rise – and the room she has left to grow. Momentum matters in politics, and Warren has spent nine uninterrupted months building hers.

Look beyond the top-line numbers, which have Warren leading Biden by a statistically insignificant 2 percentage point margin: Seventy-one percent of Iowa Democrats say Warren is either their first choice, their second choice, or that they are actively considering supporting her. That's 11 points higher than Biden, 16 points higher than South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and, crucially, 21 points higher than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Warren's biggest rival in the progressive lane.

Selzer calls that combination – first choice, second choice plus actively considering – the "candidate footprint," a way to measure support that reflects the fluid nature of a caucus in which voters can pick different candidates in different rounds. That Warren has the largest footprint is important at this stage of the race, she said.

"The footprint signals upside potential," Selzer said in an email.

It might seem premature to call Warren the race's overall front-runner, but history is on her side. The last four winners of the Iowa Democratic caucuses won the party's presidential nomination.

Iowa is make-or-break for a growing number of candidates

Kamala Harris has joked about moving to Iowa. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) pretty much has moved there. Former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) has camped out there for more than a year.

For all the talk of a nationalized election and a long, drawn-out fight for the Democratic nomination, Iowa is becoming a make-or-break state for a significant number of candidates.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has to do something in her neighboring state. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) has already spent much of his campaign's war chest on television spots in Iowa, apparently to little effect. And Bullock is clear his chances rest on a strong Iowa showing.

Iowa can launch a president. It can also end a bunch of dreams. This year, more than any previous year, Iowans are going to severely narrow a record-size Democratic field.

Warren is still growing, others aren't

At this weekend's Polk County Democratic Party Steak Fry, a massive picnic that drew every major candidate and thousands of Democratic activists, Warren was one of the few contenders who didn't lead a massive parade onto the pitch. Instead, her team spent time organizing some of the 12,000 attendees who showed up – and, of course, she took selfies. More than a thousand, according to her campaign.

Selzer's poll showed Warren is seen favorably by 75 percent of the Democratic electorate, a larger slice than anyone else in the field. Almost 70 percent see Buttigieg in a favorable light, two-thirds see Biden favorably, and both Harris and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) crack the 60 percent mark.

But Warren was one of the few candidates who saw her favorable ratings rise, up 12 points since March.

Biden's favorable ratings have dropped 15 points since March, when he first announced his campaign. The number of Iowa Democrats who see him unfavorably has doubled to 29 percent.

Sanders has fallen too, from a 70 percent favorable rating in June to 58 percent today. His unfavorable ratings, 36 percent, are the highest numbers of any of the top-tier candidates.

Several contenders haven't seen their reputations grow over the crucial summer months. Harris, Bullock, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) all saw little movement in their favorable ratings over the summer.

Biden's biggest rival isn't Warren, it's Buttigieg

Several candidates have staked their campaigns on the hope that Biden collapses, putting a tranche of moderate Democrats suddenly up for grabs. Bullock, Klobuchar, Bennet and Delaney are circling like buzzards.

But they haven't caught on. Buttigeig has, and he's now the most pressing threat to Biden's campaign.

"Mayor Pete has become the mainstream alternative to Biden," said Jeff Link, a longtime Iowa Democratic strategist who is unaligned this year.

The young mayor is one of only two candidates, along with Warren, whose favorable ratings are higher than Biden's. More than half of Iowa Democrats, 57 percent, say they think someone who represents a new generation of leadership would make a more electable candidate than someone with a long history of serving in government.

And Buttigieg has grown as a candidate more than just about anyone else running this year. At this weekend's Steak Fry, Buttigieg drew some of the loudest and most sustained applause of any candidate, rivaled only by Warren.

Nationally, Biden has the largest share of the Democratic vote. If he falters, and his supporters look elsewhere, he need not fear Warren – he has to worry about Buttigieg, especially if Democratic voters are hungry for the generational change that the first post-Boomer president would represent.

Warning signs for anyone planning to attack Warren

One sign that Buttigieg increasingly likes his own odds is that he's slowly straying out of his lane, and engaging his more liberal rivals.

At this month's debate, he asked why candidates like Warren and Sanders, who back Medicare for All and an end to private insurance, don't trust voters to make their own decisions. He repeated that veiled jab at the Steak Fry in Des Moines.

But at a time when Democratic voters are desperate to nominate someone who can beat President Trump, they have showed little interest in rewarding candidates who attack each other. Buttigieg need look no farther than Harris and Castro, the candidates who went most aggressively on the attack on debate stages so far.

Castro launched a blistering broadside against Biden, suggesting Biden had forgotten elements of his own policy proposals in a thinly-veiled shot at the 76-year-old's age. Castro's attack was factually wrong, and politically costly.

Between Selzer's June poll and her September poll, Castro's unfavorable rating shot up from 13 percent to 36 percent. More than half of those who watched the last debate said they had an unfavorable impression of the former San Antonio mayor.

Harris was the first to attack Biden, during the first Democratic debate, about four weeks after Selzer's June poll was conducted. Since that debate, Harris's unfavorable ratings have risen 11 percentage points.

Buttigieg, Biden, or anyone lining up an attack on Warren or any other front-runner needs to be wary. No candidate has gotten away with an attack on another candidate without seeing their own numbers suffer as a result.

Democrats are fired up

In the week leading up to the Steak Fry, the most pressing concern was the weather. The forecast called for rain, and threatening clouds sat ominously over Des Moines on Saturday.

But Democrats showed up, in droves. Sean Bagniewski, the chairman of the Polk County Democrats, said the party had sold more than 12,000 tickets at $35 a piece, and they ordered more than 10,000 steaks from Hy-Vee (They also, for the first time, had alternative options on the menu for Booker and Gabbard, the two vegans in the race).

Democratic voters are motivated in the age of Trump. The party won back control of the House of Representatives on the strength of higher-than-expected enthusiasm in 2018. More than 3.3 million small-dollar donors have given a record amount of money to Democratic candidates in the first half of the year, and polls show historic levels of excitement.

The latest CNN survey, conducted by SSRS earlier this month, showed 71 percent of voters are either extremely or very enthusiastic about next year's elections. That's higher than the excitement levels the same poll found just before the 2016, and even just before the 2012 and 2008 elections.

An important caveat to those numbers: About equal numbers of Republicans (51 percent) as Democrats (47 percent) say they are extremely enthusiastic, suggesting the potential for a huge turnout in 2020.

But more immediately, Iowa Democrats are taking heed of turnout at events like the Steak Fry. The party is already planning for the largest-ever caucus turnout. They might want to plan for even more people to show up.

The unanswered questions

No wonder New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) ended his campaign on Friday. Not a single person told Selzer's pollsters they backed him as their first or second choice, and an incredible 54 percent of Iowa Democrats see him unfavorably.

Where's Cory Booker's surge? The New Jersey senator has 50 staffers on the ground in Iowa, he gets consistently strong reviews for his rousing stump speech, and his favorable rating is higher than all but four others. But he's yet to have a moment on par with Buttigieg's CNN town hall, or Harris's confrontation with Biden, or even Klobuchar's announcement-in-the-snow. And he's running out of time: Booker's campaign took the unprecedented step this weekend of suggesting he could drop out of the race if his numbers don't improve, quickly.

Speaking of Klobuchar, is she popping or not? Selzer's poll found the Minnesota senator clocking in at 3 percent of the vote, while a survey conducted for Focus on Rural America, a group Link runs, found her at 8 percent of the vote. Given another moment or two in the sun, Klobuchar has showed hints that she could become a serious thorn in Biden's side.

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren campaigns at a town hall event at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire. Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Last week saw some of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s best polling since she first entered the race for president. It wasn’t just because of who she surpassed in a handful of polls (former Vice President Joe Biden) but also where she surpassed him: the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

A slew of recent polls, like the Des Moines Register/CNN poll in Iowa, the Monmouth University/USA Today poll in New Hampshire, and a national Quinnipiac University poll show Warren settling into frontrunner status along with Biden (while the polls show Warren gaining, Biden hasn’t lost much ground with his lead).

And Warren is now narrowly at the front of the pack in Iowa, according to the latest Real Clear Politics polling average of that state. It’s still early, and many of these polls are in the margin of error. But if this trajectory continues, it shows a path for her to the Democratic nomination.

“Warren has put herself in a strong enough position that she has to be considered along with Biden as the two likeliest nominees,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told Vox. “Warren also benefits from the fact that the first two contests are in Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden does much better with black voters than Warren, but there are hardly any nonwhite voters in those two leadoff states.”

To clinch the nomination, it’s important for Warren to win or come in a close second in Iowa and then win New Hampshire — a key state bordering her home state of Massachusetts. She’s also invested heavily in the third early state of Nevada, where her campaign has been on the ground since January. Warren is hoping an early state trifecta can help convince voters in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states to vote for her as well.

Biden is still dominant in South Carolina, where support from older black voters, in particular, has buoyed him 21 points ahead of Warren, a new CNN poll shows. But Biden’s advisers have also been tamping down expectations about Iowa and New Hampshire, and banking on the fourth early voting state could be a tough gambit.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is also still very much in the mix — he’s the only other candidate polling at double digits nationally, per the latest Real Clear Politics national poll average. Sanders just announced a massive fundraising haul and is a formidable presence in New Hampshire after sweeping the 2016 primary there. But Warren’s slow and steady rise is undeniable, and it appears to have staying power beyond the early states.RealClearPolitics

A recent LA Times/Berkeley IGS Poll showed her with a 9-point lead in California, an important Super Tuesday state with a huge cache of delegates. And Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray says Warren has been making strides among multiple groups of voters.

“She’s gained 5 points and 6 points among moderates, but at the same time, she’s gained among liberals,” Murray told Vox. “There’s a sense that she is a viable general election candidate against the president.”

With four months away from the Iowa caucuses, anything could happen (case in point, the impeachment inquiry House Democrats have launched against President Donald Trump). But if Warren can continue her upward momentum, capturing the first two states could pay big dividends in subsequent contests.

The outcome in Iowa and New Hampshire could radically change how many other Democrats around the country view the presidential race, Murray said.Warren’s trajectory has been slow and steady

In phase one of the 2020 presidential campaign, Warren’s team largely achieved what it set out to do: a slow and steady rise to frontrunner status.

Despite her opening gate stumble with her DNA ancestry test, Warren’s stable, incremental build has differentiated her from much of the rest of the 2020 field. Candidates like Sen. Kamala Harris, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke have all enjoyed sudden rises in the polls — only to see that support fade away.

“In the story of the tortoise and the hare, we’ve seen a number of hares. But there’s no question Warren has been the tortoise,” Murray said. “You’re not a flash in the pan, something new. These are people saying I’m thinking about this, I’m pretty committed here. And that suggests she’s not going to lose that support.”

Warren solidified herself early on as “the plans candidate,” releasing a dizzying array of progressive policy ideas from a wealth tax to a plan to erase the vast majority of America’s student debt, and coining the slogan, ‘Warren has a plan for that.’ Rather than running on a core message about electability and beating Trump, Warren’s campaign has been characterized by its relentless dedication to rooting out corruption in Washington, DC. Warren has followed by the candidate forgoing high-dollar fundraisers and doing call-time with grassroots supporters, rather than rich donors (something Sanders is also doing).

Now that she is considered a frontrunner, Warren will undoubtedly get more scrutiny from the media and other campaigns; some of Sanders’ top staffers have already started to go after her on policy issues, questioning her dedication to the progressive cause on issues like housing, climate, and education policy. There are still plenty of questions about whether Warren can capture independents, or convince black voters to vote for her instead of Biden.

“Warren does better with white voters, and particularly those with college degrees,” Kondik said. “She fits the profile of a ‘wine track’ candidate, an old phrase sometimes used in contrast with ‘beer track’ candidates to differentiate between candidates who appeal to more upscale, liberal, urban Democrats as opposed to more downscale, less liberal Democrats.”With Trump’s impeachment inquiry, the 2020 campaign is entering a new and untested phase

Warren has proved she has staying power heading into the final four crucial months of the campaign — which is coming at a particularly tumultuous time.

The past week marked a turning point in the campaign on a number of fronts; as Warren inched closer to Biden’s lead, Washington erupted as House Democrats started to pursue an impeachment inquiry into the allegation that President Donald Trump used his office to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Biden and his son.

It’s too early to tell how this news could impact the Democratic primary, but it’s a big test of Biden’s electability argument that he is the best candidate to take on Trump — his stated reason for running in the first place.

“How he handles this will be telling for Democrats,” Murray said. “This is where Biden gets to prove whether he has what it takes to be that viable generation election candidate.”

Warren doesn’t have the same immediate pressure as Biden on the Trump and Ukraine scandal. Nonetheless, it gives her another opening to hammer her message of anti-corruption, especially with the current administration embodying much of what she opposes.

Meanwhile, the Warren campaign is expanding. Last week, Warren campaign manager Roger Lau sent a memo to supporters announcing the campaign would launch an eight-figure TV and digital ad buy in the coming months as well as hire more staff in states beyond the first four.

“We’re targeting our resources to invest in places that will be critical to keeping the House, taking back the US Senate, and regaining ground in key state legislatures in 2020,” Lau said.

The next few months will be crucial for Warren’s campaign. They’ve made it clear they have a plan.

‘Biden looks like he can’t compete with Warren, Bernie and Buttigieg. How’s he going to compete with Trump?’ said one GOP strategist.

Joe Biden. | Mario Tama/Getty Images

By NATASHA KORECKI

10/04/2019 06:19 PM EDT

Joe Biden’s middling $15.2 million third-quarter fundraising haul is raising fresh questions about whether the former vice president’s campaign can withstand a new onslaught of Republican ad attacks while simultaneously waging a battle for the Democratic nomination.

Biden’s campaign has long framed his candidacy around the idea that he can beat Trump in a head-to-head contest, particularly in the battleground states that were central to Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.

Story Continued Below

But Biden’s polling numbers in the Democratic primary have declined in recent months, and his fundraising has also lagged — he collected $7 million less between July and the end of September than in the second quarter.

Story Continued Below

His latest fundraising round was more than $9 million behind his closest rival in the polls — Elizabeth Warren. His total also ran well behind Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders.

That’s a problem for a candidate who is seeking to compete in all four early states and also build out his campaign infrastructure in the 14 states that will vote on Super Tuesday.

Making matters worse, Donald Trump and Republicans have announced they’ll launch $10 million in negative TV ads — with $1 million targeted at the early nominating states alone — pushing the president’s claim that Biden and his son Hunter engaged in corruption in Ukraine.

Trump — who is facing an impeachment inquiry that centers on his asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son’s business dealings — and Republicans together raised an eye-popping $125 million in the third quarter .

“The reason it’s happening is because Trump sees Biden as his biggest threat,” said Patti Solis Doyle, a former Barack Obama adviser and onetime Biden chief of staff. “In some ways, it’s a good thing because it frames it as a Biden versus Trump race. However, if Biden cannot compete on the other metrics in the field, then even that [advantage] goes away for him.”

POLITICO NEWSLETTERSPOLITICO Playbook

Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

The surge in anti-Biden messaging comes at a pivotal time in the Democratic campaign, as Warren surges in the polls and makes gains across different demographic groups. Between the campaign’s need to spend to preserve its position in the primary and its need to defend against the flurry of GOP attacks, Biden will be fighting on two fronts, amid new doubts over whether Biden will have the resources necessary to do both.

Story Continued Below

And Biden must continue to demonstrate vitality to donors or he’ll face a fate similar to what Jeb Bush experienced in a crowded 2016 primary race in which the former Florida governor steadily fell behind, unable to recover from a surging Trump.

David Kochel, a chief strategist in Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said like Biden, Bush was an early front-runner with high name ID who raised “a boatload” the first quarter but failed to grow after big donors maxed out. He said Biden is in danger of following a similar trendline because of the nature of his fundraising base.

“The former vice president, with all the high-dollar contacts around the country — you do all the big fundraisers in the big cities. Once you do that, that’s it. If you don’t have that perpetual, low-dollar fundraising machine, you can’t compete,” Kochel said, noting the massive figures reported by Biden’s top rivals. “Biden looks like he can’t compete with Warren, Bernie and Buttigieg. How’s he going to compete with Trump?”

A Biden campaign statement Thursday on its fundraising disputed the notion that he wasn’t building momentum or that his donors had maxed out. The last week of the quarter was Biden’s best week since early May, according to the campaign, and 98 percent of its donations were $200 or less.

The Biden campaign is attempting to fend off incoming Trump ads by aggressively lobbying cable networks against airing a new Ukraine-oriented spot that it says “spreads false, definitively debunked conspiracy theories.” The campaign on Friday served Facebook with the same letter and is expected to do the same with local TV stations.

This week, it announced its own early state digital and TV ad buy — $6 million worth.2020 elections

Biden himself fought back against Trump in a Nevada appearance earlier this week.

“You’re not going to destroy me,” Biden declared. “And you’re not going to destroy my family. I don’t care how much money you spend or how dirty the attacks get.”

Since the first reports that Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden, the former vice president’s campaign has attempted to raise money off the scandal, crafting fundraising pitches around the latest headlines. On Friday, a new online fundraising request urged potential donors to chip in to a new “Beat Trump Rapid Response Fund.”

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world.You don’t know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

LaRouche PAC, a far-right group that supports Donald Trump, has taken credit for trolling Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a town hall meeting yesterday. An operative with LaRouche made headlines overnight after standing up at AOC’s town hall in Queens yesterday and saying that humanity should eat babies, among other ridiculous things, to address the climate crisis.

Viral video from the incident shows a woman posing as a supporter of AOC and wearing a shirt that reads, “Save the Planet, Eat the Children.” Many people clearly thought she was mentally disturbed, but LaRouche PAC, a fringe organization that believes climate change is a hoax, was behind the stunt, according to the group’s Twitter account.

“I think your next campaign slogan has to be this: We have got to start eating babies,” the unnamed woman says, according to video captured by C-SPAN.

“I’m so happy that you are really supporting a Green New Deal, but it’s not enough,” the woman told Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez as others in the room looked on in confusion. “Even if we were to bomb Russia, we still have too many people, too much pollution. So we have to get rid of the babies. That’s a big problem. Just stopping having babies is not enough. We need to eat the babies.”

AOC can be seen trying to calm the woman down, repeatedly saying “it’s okay,” and ignoring the comments about babies. While the woman’s reference to “bombing” Russia may seem odd, the group supports both President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It was us,” the LaRouche organization tweeted late Thursday, in response to a question about whether the woman was serious. “Malthusianism isn’t new, Jonathan Swift knew that. Sometimes, only satire works.”

President Donald Trump got into the fray last night, tweeting “AOC is a Wack Job!” in response to the viral video. Trump likely had no idea that the woman in the video was one of his supporters.

The connection of this stunt to LaRouche was first noted by London-based Matthew Sweet, author of the book Operation Chaos, which looks at conspiracy theorists of the late 1960s, including Lyndon LaRouche Jr., the late cofounder of the group. LaRouche, who was perhaps best known for his antisemitic conspiracy theories, died this past February. LaRouche claimed that Jews were actually funding the KKK and said that the Queen of England wanted to have him killed.

“It is textbook stuff,” Sweet told Gizmodo via Twitter DM, referring to yesterday’s bizarre stunt. “They have been in this game for decades.”

Sweet notes that the group did something similar to 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, spreading leaflets that he was mentally unwell and had visited a psychiatrist. The campaign made national headlines and Dukakis was forced to release medical records refuting the claim.

Aside from yesterday’s outburst, LaRouche PAC has been trying to get “eat children” satire out in other street-level engagements to discredit the environmental movement. The group posted photos to Facebook on October 2 that includes a message about eating children, as well as other more earnest messages in support of Donald Trump.

Gizmodo reached out to LaRouche PAC early Friday but has not heard back. We’ll update this post if we hear anything from the group.

Update, 11:05 am: Here’s video on Facebook, published about 12 hours ago, showing a man out canvassing with an identical “Save the Planet, Eat the Children” t-shirt.

The man doesn’t identify himself as being with Lyndon LaRouche PAC, though the video was shared on the page of “Daniel Burke For U.S. Senate,” who is identified as “an activist with the political movement founded by the late Lyndon LaRouche.”

Correction: This post originally stated the group also had a sign that said “Eat the Children.” Only the group’s t-shirts say “Eat the Children,” as far as we can tell, though other signs from their Facebook photos include signs like “The Green New Deal is Genocide For Africa.” Gizmodo regrets the error.

Biden says he wouldn't pardon Trump if elected president Biden says he wouldn't pardon Trump if…

by

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leads the pack of Democratic presidential hopefuls but remains only narrowly ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday.

The poll showed Warren in first place with 30 percent support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters nationally. Biden isn’t far behind. He notched 27 percent support in the survey, still within its 5.3 percentage point margin of error.

The only other candidate to register double-digit support in the poll was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who came in with 11 percent support. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) rounded out the top five with 8 percent and 4 percent support, respectively.

The poll is the latest to show Warren’s candidacy on the rise. A similar survey from Quinnipiac released last week also placed the Massachusetts senator in the lead, with 29 percent support. That same poll showed Biden in second place, with 26 percent.

The latest Quinnipiac poll also shows a noticeable drop for Sanders, who has been off the campaign trail in recent weeks after suffering a heart attack. He fell from 16 percent in the survey released last week to 11 percent in the poll released on Monday, suggesting that his recent absence and lingering questions about his health may be taking a toll on his support.

For Warren, the poll also suggests that some voters who once doubted her ability to win the presidency in 2020 should she become the Democratic nominee are now more bullish about her candidacy.

Twenty-one percent of respondents said that she is the candidate with the best chance of beating President Trump next year, up from 9 percent in another Quinnipiac poll released on Aug. 9.

Biden still leads the pack on that particular question. Forty-eight percent of respondents said that he was best suited to take on Trump in 2020, down only slightly from 49 percent in August.

The poll — one of several released in recent weeks that showed Biden losing ground to Warren — came a day before 12 candidates, including the two front-runners, take the stage in Westerville, Ohio, for the fourth Democratic presidential debate.

Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University, said that the latest survey — the third in a row from the university showing Warren in the lead — suggests that the Massachusetts Democrat has “staying power.”

That may be particularly valuable as she heads into the next debate, where her rising poll numbers could make her a target for her rivals for the Democratic nomination.

"For Senator Warren, the third straight time essentially tied at the top is the charm," Malloy said in a statement. "Her candidacy clearly has staying power going into the debate."

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 505 Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents by telephone from Oct. 11 to 13 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.